


The Lie of Elysian

by Heikijin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alpha Keith (Voltron), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Child Death, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gore, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Omega Lance (Voltron), Suffering, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Violence, Whump, Woobie Lance, Zombie Apocalypse, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 15:34:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30074415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heikijin/pseuds/Heikijin
Summary: When the apocalypse hit no one really expected it. They thought the fungus wouldn't affect them, or that a cure would be found. But not this time. By the time the full effects of the infection were found out it was too late to stop it, and the world fell into chaos and despair. Being an Omega through it all was obviously the last thing on Lance's mind when his entire family were ravaged by A.Z.E. But, months later it's clear what a struggle life could be when the steady supply of hormone and heat blockers he'd grown used to ran dry. Finally having to deal with his late presentation as well as an intriguing new visitor—an Alpha by the name of Keith—Lance struggles to come to terms with the challenges of their new way of life.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 57





	The Lie of Elysian

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will have it's tags updated as more are added, as usual. 
> 
> Whilst I'm really into Omegaverse, I've not really written it at length like this before so this will be a learning experience lol!
> 
> ━━━━━━༻ ༺━━━━━━ denotes time passing or scene change.

Turns out travelling to the big city for Lance’s birthday together had been a bad idea. By the next day the news had broken about a severe illness spreading from the city, truths had been admitted and panic began to settle in the city folk.

Lance and his family just sat and hoped they’d not been exposed by whatever restaurants had held the contaminated foods. The government wouldn't name them, for some reason. Lance felt so much guilt over the thought of getting his family sick— _ just for his birthday _ —that he’d spent most of that afternoon on his knees at the toilet. The reports of looting and violence had been shocking, the McClain's had felt lucky to be so isolated in the countryside. Away from the chaos of the big cities and nearby towns.

Three days after their visit Lance’s mother started to feel unwell. Then his brother Marco, then Veronica. They’d still hoped it was a stomach flu at that point—it wasn’t.

Their decline was quick and they'd moved themselves into the barn, locking themselves in and leaving Lance, Rachel and the children in the house. Lance knew they'd hoped to save them from getting sick too, from seeing their decline. But all they'd done was split everyone up sooner, all of them had shared food at the restaurant. They were all already infected, they were all already dying.

Of the four left in the house, Nadia turned fully first. Lance had been the only one not displaying any symptoms at that point, he'd been getting water for the others to drink whilst ignoring the horrible sounds from the direction of the barn. Had wiped sweat from Rachel's brow and gently dabbed at Sylvio's oozing blisters and brushed Nadia's hair telling her how pretty she still was even as it fell out in clumps. Not that any of them had noticed much, delirious with fever and pain.

But Nadia... she had died first and then as Lance had held her and wailed out his crushing despair she'd woken, lunged and sunk her teeth into the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

The pain had been delayed by his utter shock. Lance knew what happened to infected people, but hadn’t  _ seen _ it happen until then. He hadn’t even known such small teeth could break skin but the pressure in her bite was—for lack of a better word—superhuman. After the initial shock wore off Lance screamed, Nadia was still latched on and twisting her head this way and that trying to rip a chunk of flesh and muscle away. 

Lance wanted to think that he hesitated before punching her in the side of the head repeatedly until she let go, but he hadn't. Fear and pain had spurred his body on to try and free himself in any way possible, even if the assailant was his 6 year old niece. 

Nadia growled and lunged again but Lance pulled away, toppling backwards and rolling to the side as he stumbled to his feet. She ran after him - surprisingly fast for the recently deceased! - and Lance slid into the kitchen. He yanked the folding door that hadn't been shut in years closed and leaned against it. Nadia's little fingers scratched the wood on the other side, her voice twisted by the reanimation virus, or whatever they'd settled on calling it. Feeling like his heart was going to flutter out of his chest, or as if he might puke, Lance looked around the room for something to protect himself with. Or rather, something to kill Nadia with.

Lance swallowed thickly and felt his body jerk with a violent sob at the thought. He knew what the virus did to people, the news had been quite clear on that. Once they died they were dead, but their bodies remained, spurred on by the infection and with no apparent purpose wither than feeding. But Lance didn't know if he could bring himself to  _ murder _ his niece. That's what it felt like he'd be doing, because she still looked like her. Hair tied back in the french braids Lance had given her the day before, eyes big and blue if a little dimmer now, adorable squishy cheeks... that were now covered in his blood.

Lance winced and brought a hand up to his injured shoulder tentatively. He gagged with the pain when he pressed down against it too hard and when he pulled away the blood was thick and slippery over his fingers and palm. Lance grit his teeth and looked down at his shirt, red was staining the left side of it and the top of his jeans too from how profusely he'd been bleeding. More panic set in then, if that were even possible. He couldn't  _ see _ how bad the damage was but the more time that passed the more Lance was feeling it. 

He let his left arm hang limp at his side for the moment to keep the pain to a minimum, though it still hurt like a bitch. 

Keeping a foot firmly on the fold of the door to stop Nadia getting in lance reached across for one of the chairs and pulled it closer, wedging it against the door handle and hoping it would stay there long enough for him to get a knife. He'd make it quick for her, or as quick as possible. Not like Lance had ever killed anything bigger than a chicken before and killing a person was probably quite a bit harder than that.

The door rattled harder and Nadia began making a low sort of screeching sound as Lance moved away towards the knife block. He stared at it for a while, most would probably go for the cleaver or one of the large carving knives, but Lance didn't want to cut  _ himself  _ in the process and Nadia was small. So he grabbed a medium sized vegetable knife and knew it was razor sharp because his mother wouldn't stand for a blunt blade being in  _ her _ kitchen. For a moment the thought of his mother - outside in the barn and just as rabid as Nadia now—made Lance sob heavily again.

Closing his eyes to try and ground himself Lance took a deep breath, winced at how it moved his shoulder, and made his way towards the door. He had to do it as soon as possible or he'd just freak out more. Have more time to dwell on how horrific what he was doing was, more time to listen to his precious Niece thirsting after his flesh as she scratched at the door. The sound of nails scratching certain surfaces made his skin crawl at the best of times but with the situation as it was it was so much worse.

Lance grit his teeth and kicked the chair away from the door. 

As soon as he'd done that Nadia's weight against the door pushed it open and she fell into the room with a thud. She wasn't down for long, however and Lance yelped and took a few quick steps backwards as he lunged again. He sobbed and stepped to the side as she fell against the kitchen island and he pressed his weight against her back with a hip to hold her there. It was so wrong, his hand was shaking so badly he wasn't sure he could even apply enough pressure but  _ she was already dead _ . He had to tell himself that over and over as she snarled and bucked trying to get out of his hold to bite him again. She was dead and this was just... just some weird fungus or virus or  _ something  _ making her body move. As if it had any  _ right. _

Lance let the anger over the situation bloom within his chest, clutching onto it like a lifeline and using it to smother out the utter despair and grief that had been swirling within him before. 

He leaned down and whispered an apology as he brought the knife to her throat, he knew how zombie films worked but he wasn't sure he had the strength to stab through her skull - god the thought made him gag again. Lance would much rather try that out on someone who was  _ not _ a tiny family member. Still shaking hard Lance pressed down and whimpered through his clenched teeth, pushing through the odd mixture of rage and sorrow he pressed as hard as he could and sliced. 

Nadia had little reaction at first, not even a flinch and Lance had to repeat the motion three more times before her head was at an odd angle and she slowed to a stop. Turns out cutting their heads off - or mostly off - killed zombies too. Not so much like every zombie horror movie he'd ever seen, then.

Lance placed the knife on the counter and cradled Nadia in his arms - ignoring the pain in his shoulder and the fresh trickle of blood from the wound - as he lowered her body to the floor. 

"Oh my sweet... sweet..." Lance choked and then wailed loudly. Hugging her limp body to him and rocking back and forth as if to comfort her.

It was three hours later when Lance managed to pull himself away from her to clean and dress his own wound. Sylvio and Rachel needed water and pain killers too. Only after he'd tended to them did Lance try to think about what to do with Nadia. In the end Lance decided that he'd find a nice spot to bury her within the bounds of the family farm. There was plenty of space there, after all.

After trying to sleep and failing spectacularly, Lance rolled out of bed just as the first rays of sunshine broke the horizon. He pulled on some old sweat pants and a sleeveless shirt, but not before changing the dressing on his shoulder and taking some ibuprofen. He hoped it didn't get infected - in hindsight though, a run of the mill wound infection would have been preferable to ABC. Taking a glance at Nadia's small form still wrapped in the bundle of sheets in the kitchen, Lance forced the tears back and made his way out into the garden surrounding the house. 

The birds were singing happily and he could hear their chickens cooing and beginning to wake in their pen at the back, just at the fence line that separated their garden from the rest of the farm. Lance shook his head and tiredly trudged across the grounds, flinching away from the sudden rush of commotion from inside the barn as he passed. His family were hungry for their first meal since turning, obviously. They weren't going to get one.

He grabbed a shovel that was propped at the side of the tool shed and kept walking until he got to the edge of the woodland bordering one of the paddocks. Lance slipped through the gate and walked closer to the treeline before glancing about and nodding to himself. The rope swing the kids used to use was swinging slightly in the breeze nearby and Lance remembered his family having many fun little picnics and lazy afternoons around this area. He couldn't dig too close to the trees because of their roots, but he thought it was a fitting place for a family graveyard. 

The going was slow and exhausting, not to mention painful. By the time Lance had dug a hole large enough but only two feet deep he was sweating and his wound dressing was soaked with blood again. He dropped the shovel and shakily made his way back to the house for some water and to tend to his sister and nephew. Luckily they were both still holding on, but Lance wasn't sure if it was lucky for them or only lucky for him, considering how delirious and pained they were. Lance did his best to change their clothes and bedding so at least they weren't lying in blood and whatever other fluids were oozing from their blistered and sloughing skin. Not to mention makeshift diapers were definitely not as good as the real thing, but neither of them were able to even sense when they needed to go to the bathroom let alone tell him. 

After spending some time with them and forcing himself to at least eat some of the chicken soup he'd been trying to get them to eat, Lance resumed his digging. 

He managed to get to about four feet deep before he couldn't dig any more. His shoulder was in too much pain and his arm was shooting with pain making it hard to keep a good grip on the shovel. Once again blood was saturating his poor attempt at bandaging and dribbling down his arm and soaking into the area of his shirt across his chest. It was a good grave for her, anyway. Hopefully deep enough that nothing would try to dig it up and beneath the colourful canopy of a cherry tree that had long since finished flowering but was a beautiful shade of white when it did.

Lance wiped his hands off on his sweats and dropped the shovel onto the pile of dug up earth. Then he went back to the house - sombre - to gather Nadia into his weary arms and walk her out to her final resting place. He'd carve some wood into a grave marker sometime, too. When his arm was better. He was outside well into the night covering her with the earth, crying and trying to half sob, half sing soft lullabies to her as he worked.

━━━━━━༻ ༺━━━━━━

Rachel had passed away the next day, and then Sylvio in quick succession. But Lance was barely able to put them to rest and pull their wrapped bodies into the yard before he had to admit to himself that he had it too. He'd thought he wasn't going to catch it, but the scarce radio broadcasts he'd listened to after burying Nadia had said something about the bite of the dead passing it on. So, he hadn't been infected by the food like the rest of his family, but a bite by one of them. Lance supposed at least he would be with them in death.

The area around his wound was black and oozing, his left arm see-sawed between being numb and being excruciating and then the blisters started appearing. First on his hands because—he guessed—he used them so much. The skin was raw and pulling away leaving burning wounds seeping in its wake. Then his hair started to fall out and Lance didn't remember too much after that aside from searing heat burning through him and the pain.

Lance thought he was actually dying a couple of times, feeling his heart fluttering in his chest unevenly and passing out, only to wake up an indeterminate amount of time later in more agony than before. 

He didn't know how long it lasted, time held no meaning when you were writhing and gasping on sheets covered in your own blood, pee and whatever it was oozing out of every wound. Like pus but grey and much more pungent. Lance couldn't quite believe it when he woke up from a delirious dream to find he felt minutely better than the day before. Could believe it even less when day by day he felt better and better. until he could finally pull himself out of bed and actually stand, albeit on weak and shaking legs.

His head was pounding with a migraine brought on by dehydration and lack of food and so even before he took a shower he gulped down as much water as his stomach could hold and tentatively ate a protein bar hoping that he wasn't going to puke it all up again. Then Lance had a shower, wincing as the water hit his scabbed over sores and the inflamed bite wound on his shoulder which was still prone to splitting open with movement. It hadn't seemed to heal at all whilst he was sick, so Lance wagered that whatever the virus... fungus? was it stopped the body being able to heal itself at all. He thought he'd heard them say something about infected mould on the news. Which he guessed was probably the point, it was trying to kill them after all.

After he was as clean as he could get and feeling raw and exhausted Lance dragged himself to his parents bedroom and curled up in their clean bed, after putting on some pyjamas that covered as much skin as possible and wrapped the rest—aside from his face—in bandages. He didn't want to get  _ this _ bed covered in gunk, too. It smelled of his parents still, and Lance curled up into a ball and cried hard until he all but passed out again.

Lance carried on his days trying to rest, keep hydrated,  _ eat _ and tend to his healing skin. He'd coughed up quite a bit of blood a few times but did his best to ignore it. He was  _ going to live, damnit.  _ He wouldn't let it beat him, Lance hadn't even known recovery was possible and yet here he was. Why was he the only one, though? 

If anything he could think of a million reasons why each and every one of his family members was much more worthy of recovery and staying alive than he was. He couldn't think of very many reasons at all as to why he should get to survive instead. The guilt ate away at him and as the days dragged on, Lance knew he had to take care of the rest of the family that was still in the barn. Though he had no idea as to how he was going to do that considering that his brothers were bigger and stronger than he was, and even Veronica who was an Alpha was. His mother... she was small, but had always been determined and strong in his eyes and the thought of having to kill her, too, almost broke him all over again.

Lance didn't try to go to the barn for a long time.

Instead he dug graves for Rachel and Sylvio next to Nadia and sat under the shade of the trees there, peeling the bark off of and carving intricate patterns into some thick branches. He tied them together so he ended up with three large X shaped markers and carefully dug the ground and pushed them in deep so that they were sturdy. Lance collected some smooth, rounded stones from the edges of the small river that ran through the property a ten minute walk through the woods from the grave site. They made perfect decoration at the bottom of each cross and doubled as an additional support for them, too. 

Lance carefully stroked his fingertips over his twin's name, carved delicately along the upper length of one of the branches and surrounded by swirling patterns. "This is the best I can do, Rach... Sorry it's not a magnificent carving of you in marble. Heh." Lance chuckled but it was weak and airy as he tried not to cry again. His sister had always said that she'd have a huge statue above her grave in the family plot thirty miles away. He'd forgotten now how that conversation had even started between the five siblings but he knew it had been around Halloween time, so it was probably the result of some horror movie or other.

He pressed a kiss to his fingertips and then pressed his fingers to her name, he repeated the same action to both Sylvio and Nadia's markers as well before leaving to feed the chickens that had survived his bout of sickness without getting fed.

━━━━━━༻ ༺━━━━━━

When Lance  _ finally _ gave in and looked into a mirror a month after recovering he blanched. He didn't know what to make of his new appearance and hadn't really been expecting it at all. He'd been expecting scarred skin and deep puckered wounds all over from where the blisters had formed and popped and pulled away leaving deep wounds. But there were surprisingly  _ few _ areas that looked actually scarred and none of those were on his face. 

What  _ was _ on his face were patches of pale skin, mottled and irregular. Across the bridge of his nose the marks were small and dotted and looked almost like freckles compared to the larger patches which looked more like he'd been splattered with pale, peachy coloured paint. The pigment had what? Dissolved? Whatever it was, it was gone and technically he  _ knew _ that his skin was weird and patchy from fleeting glances at parts of his body. But Lance had kept himself as wrapped up as possible despite the heat so even his fingers had been wrapped in bandages, like some sort of mummy. 

So actually  _ seeing _ himself properly was... it was something else. 

Lance pressed a hand to his scalp and brushed his hand through the half inch or so of hair that had managed to grow back. White hair.  _ White hair _ . Lance blinked and stared owlishly, turning his head to either side to inspect it with a furrow of his brows - which were also white.  _ That _ was something he hadn't known changed. All his body hair had fallen out when he was sick and nothing else had started to grow back yet; including his pubes, so he'd not seen any evidence of the change in hair colour until now. He wasn't sure he liked it. 

Lance gingerly undressed and unwrapped the bandages from himself and then stood bare in front of the bathroom mirror. He ran his hands across his body in exploration, pressing against the larger areas of pale skin and poking at the gnarled bite scar on his shoulder. It had finally healed too, but was still pink and angry looking, skin texture uneven and tender. He cupped his palm over it and hung his head, thumb stroking the edges of the torn up flesh as he remembered who'd given him the scar in the first place. He didn't mind, in the end. 

What he did mind, however, was how  _ dry _ his skin felt. Tight and itchy in places and peeling and  _ god, he _ had to exfoliate and moisturise urgently. So he did. Lance thoroughly ran through his old beauty regime with gusto, clinging on to the familiar and usually mundane task he'd done every day before the pandemic. The cleaner he used stung in places on his face where the skin was now more sensitive but he didn't have a reaction, at least. Lance sighed as he rubbed his day moisturiser into his cheeks and then dutifully applied some unscented body butter all over, too. Whilst Lance loved some of the scents available he liked to use unscented so his admittedly minimal Beta scent could still be deciphered. 

When he was done Lance dressed in a nice pair of light stonewash jeans, a white tank top and a button down shirt with a small fawn logo embroidered on the breast pocket. He left the shirt hanging open and rolled the sleeves to just past his elbows. It made a nice change to wear something other than clean but stained jogging bottoms and ratty old t-shirts. It helped his mood, even if just a little, Lance felt a bit more like his old self even if he looked like an appaloosa.

That day had been the first where Lance felt like things may be going sort of okay.

━━━━━━༻ ༺━━━━━━

Three weeks later, with his family still locked in the barn and very much alive—or as alive as zombies could be, anyway—Lance's new semblance of calm was shattered yet again.

When it started he thought he was just getting sick again. A slight feverishness and nauseating cramps twisting his stomach and making his lower back ache, he'd been ravenously hungry, though, which was odd. On top of that Lance felt on edge and full of so much nervous energy he'd cleaned the house from top to bottom and piled all the clothes that had been left on the floor in various places by various family members on his parents bed. He'd need to sort through them after all, but before that he tried his best to sort them and lay them out in a way where they weren't spilling off the sides back onto the floor. 

By the third day Lance's cramps were worse and he ended up spending an ungodly amount of time on the toilet, dealing with possibly one of the most unpleasant experiences of his life - next to the whole zombie apocalypse. The fact that the water had stopped working at the same time so he couldn't shower made him utterly miserable so Lance curled up on the bed - still covered in clothes - and sulked until he fell asleep.

When he woke Lance knew right away he wasn't actually sick, because the fever had intensified and he was sweating but he was also aware of a gross, slippery feeling soaking the seat of his pants. He also had a boner. Not just morning wood but the type of erection that was so painful it felt like his dick was going to fall off if he didn't take it in hand and relieve the pressure  _ right now _ .

Lance whined and pressed his face against a shirt which turned out to be Rachel's, his twins scent calming the panic spiking in him as he realised he was presenting. And he was an Omega. Alone.

Lance let out a bone shuddering sob and realised the past three days had been obviously leading to this - the fever, the fuzzy headedness, the cramps and the unfortunate voiding, too. The most obvious sign, though, were the clothes on the bed. Lance had told himself it was because he was cleaning up, he was intending to sort through them and wash them or put them away in their proper places. What he'd really been doing, unconsciously, was making a  _ nest _ . Even if he'd been too dim to realise it himself Lance was glad for the instinctual act, because right now he was shaken to the core and being surrounded by the strong scent of his family was helping. A lot. 

Lance writhed, pressing his thighs together and squirming for a moment. He felt almost delirious with heat and it was less than a minute before he gave in and shoved his hands into the messy boxers he'd worn to bed. The first time didn't take very long at all, after which Lance had a brief reprieve before the need returned full force. The cycle repeated for the next 48 hours, until his body calmed down and he could stumble from the nest to do more than eat and get water from the bucket he'd filled from the farms well. Even if it had been sitting for a few days and was warm he'd barely noticed in the throes of his heat.

Lance felt much better after eating and changing clothes, some slick still lingered but it was nowhere near as bad as it had been and was bearable. So he set about the task of bringing more water in from the well and filling the large butler style sink in the kitchen half way. That done, he washed the sweat and slick and cum from his skin properly and did his usual skincare routine, too.

Heats were... a lot. Lance felt sort of hollow inside going through it alone. Usually when someone in the family had presented they held a celebration as soon as the first rut or heat was over. Lance was the only—assumed—Beta in the family but when he'd turned fifteen without presenting they'd given him a celebration, too. But Lance wasn't a Beta at all, he'd just presented late.  _ Super _ late. 

He'd heard of the rare occasions people presented after sixteen and even rarer to be over 18 but not impossible. Lance had just turned twenty two. There was probably something wrong with him, something out of whack somewhere with his hormones or something. But considering there were no doctors around that he could see for tests or medication he supposed he'd just have to sort of... wing it if any weird stuff or complications came about. After all, he doubted he'd ever get a mate now.

Lance didn't even know if he'd see another person again. When he turned on the radio there was nothing but static and every channel on the TV was blank, too. He checked his phone, no signal and it was then that Lance saw multiple texts from Hunk and Pidge that he'd missed over the past weeks. Really, he should have thought to check his phone more, but after Nadia died he'd just been in a haze, almost forgetting it even existed. He hoped Hunk and Pidge were still alive, though he had no way of knowing now.

They were—or had been—a few hundred miles south for university. Lance had long since finished his schooling, wanting to work with his family on the farm instead of leaving to go to higher education. Sometimes he'd wished he had. Dreams of being a pilot seemed out of reach, though, and so he'd not even tried. He was glad for it now, it would have destroyed him even more to be away from his family at the end. At least this way they were all together, or as together as they could be after the older ones locked themselves in the barn.

Lance dropped his phone to the coffee table and wilted against the couch cushions with a heavy sigh and stinging eyes. 

He had power thanks to the solar panels and small wind turbine they utilised across the farm, as well as a stock of diesel fuel for the machines. But there was no running water, no tv signal, no internet, no cell service or even radio. For the first time since the pandemic hit Lance felt utterly and truly alone. Miles away from his nearest neighbour and hours away from the nearest town, barely anyone even drove down the road they used to come and go. He wondered how many people were still alive and if any of them had recovered from it like him and turned mottled with white hair.

With a despondent sigh, Lance forced himself to move from his seat. He had things to do around the farm if he was going to survive long. He had to keep the animals alive and tend the crops - at least the ones in the families personal vegetable plot and greenhouse. Lance wasn't sure he could do much of anything with the rice crop, at least not alone. Of course he could get some of it but the rest would go to waste. Lance only hoped he could do it all right, he'd grown up around everything so  _ knew _ logically that he'd be able to but there was always the nagging self doubt. 

After feeding the chickens, horses and the single cow they...  _ he _ owned, Lance moved onto a completely different task.

It felt strange entering Marco's room again, like all of the others it had been cleaned up in his preheat fussing but he'd not come across what he was now searching for. Scent blockers and heat suppressants were something that Lance thought may just make his life a little easier. Whilst he wouldn't need the scent blockers unless he came across another person, or rather an Alpha, he wasn't particularly looking forward to having another heat any time soon.

Lance found what he was looking for in the small ensuite attached to Marco's bedroom. Tucked neatly in the under sink cabinet there were six months of suppressant injections left. Next to them was a bulky box of scent blockers, which would probably last almost as long if he'd planned to use them regularly. Which he didn't. 

Lance was thankful that at least one other family member was an omega, the rest were Alpha. Aside from his mother and grandfather who were also omega. But with his grandfather long passed and his mother already in the Sigma stage of her life, Marco was the only one who actually needed the suppressants and blockers. So Lance took them all out of the cupboard and took them into his parents room—which had now become  _ his _ room, because he needed the comfort of their scent. He stashed the items away in one of the bedside drawers and flopped face first onto the bed. 

The rest of his tasks could wait a while. Lance was exhausted and still slightly achy all over from his heat and the tension holding his muscles tight from the stress of... well, the end of the world as he knew it really.

━━━━━━༻ ༺━━━━━━

Months had passed since it all began. Long, lonely months filled with hard labour and steep learning curves and terrifying encounters with a small handful of travelling strangers. Strangers—all Beta—who upon seeing Lance's skin and hair usually tried to attack him, screaming about him spreading the infection if he dared touch them. Of Lance being abnormal and a freak of nature and dangerous just for  _ breathing. _

Luckily Lance knew how to hold his own in a fight, and the first had left with a broken nose, wounded pride and a backpack full of food that would keep for a while. Lance was  _ not _ an asshole that wanted other humans to starve to death, after all. Even if said humans were bastards to him.

The second encounter he'd had was with a couple and that had ended less amicably. Lance had ended up unconscious and when he awoke—with blood sticky and staining the side of his face from a head wound—he found that a lot of his provisions had been stolen. Not only that but along with the gash where he'd been hit in the head, Lance's left hand was purpled and swollen, sharp pain shooting up his arm whenever he moved his wrist. It definitely wasn't broken but he'd had to wear a make-shift splint for two weeks before it felt stabled enough to use properly again. Luckily they'd only taken three of the chickens. He guessed they couldn't fit a horse in the minibus they'd driven up in. Though they had managed to fit a good few litres of diesel in there, somehow.

No one else had ventured - or rather made it - as far out as Lance's farm for the rest of the near seven months since the shit hit the fan. There was no telling if it was just because they had no real reason to go that way—the highway ran the other side of the small mountains—or if there really weren't many people left  _ alive _ . The thought that there were so few people remaining, and that most of them seemed as if they would be hostile to him, was soul destroying. 

The more time that passed the more hopeless Lance felt, until it led him to standing in the barn his parents and older siblings had been in for months. Until he'd worked up the courage and muscle to put them to a proper rest like the others. 

The space showed little evidence of being a zombie home now. Golden strands were piled high in the hayloft and the dusty floor held no evidence of blood any more, there wasn't much to look at at all really. Nothing unrelated to the general running of a small farm anyway. That, and the haphazard pile of crates beneath the edge of the hayloft and the rope hanging from the rafters, because Lance couldn't take it anymore.

He couldn't take the loss, the back breaking, the fear, the uncertainty of how viable any food he grew would be and he certainly couldn't take the loneliness. The deafening, heart breaking, suffocating silence. Of course there were sounds, like the birds and the breeze and other general wildlife noises. But Lance missed the hum of electricity that he'd never really even noticed before it was gone, he missed the sound of a TV or game or music playing from somewhere in the house at all times. Whilst he still had his phone and laptop with gigabytes upon gigabytes of saved music and movies it wasn't the same. What he missed most of all, though, was the sound of people talking to each other or to him. He barely even spoke himself any more. 

So Lance had fought it for months until he was so worn down and weak and tired of trying that he'd tied a noose and hung it in the barn. He'd chickened out twice, afraid of the pain if he didn't pass out quickly or snap his neck right away. Now he was ready, now he was at his limit. 

Lance climbed the small pile of crates and stood on top of them, wobbling slightly. His vision was blurred by tears, dark skin beneath his eyes from lack of sleep and how much he'd cried over the past however long as he took the rope into his trembling fingers. Lance pulled the loop over his head and made sure it was tucked securely beneath his chin so it didn't slip off he stepped off of the makeshift platform.

Just as he was about to do it, at least he'd told himself he was, he heard a noise and paused, blinking. Lance frowned and squinted as if that would help him hear better.

"Hello...?" His voice was quiet and scratchy, it didn't sound like him at all. Hope fluttered in his chest like a tidal wave, it was almost painful and his breath sped to match. Then a few things happened all at once.

The door to the barn—which was open but only a crack—was thrust open and slammed against the opposing wall with a loud crash, Lance jolted with shock and the crate pile wobbled beneath his feet. Wide blue eyes took in the dark figure of a person running in with some sort of weapon raised just as the crates fell and so did he. Lance's gasp was cut off as the rope tightened and dug into his throat and then something hard but warm slammed into him and wrapped around his waist and Lance realised it was the person—man. Lance's vision became spotty and he felt lightheaded and then he couldn't make sense of much of anything any more. 

━━━━━━༻ ༺━━━━━━


End file.
